Addiction doesn't just affect the drug user. Family life can become a swirl of chaos around the drug user's behavior and the search for help.

Learn to Cope, a statewide peer-led support network founded 10 years ago for parents and relatives who are grappling with a loved one's addiction, helps families find hope and get practical tips for navigating the system to recovery.

The nonprofit group was set up in Worcester two years ago with initial funding from UMass Memorial Health Care's Community Healthlink and the Worcester Public Health Division and it is now supported by the state Department of Public Health.

Terri Nabulsi of Worcester and Sue Krikorian of Leicester are parent facilitators for the Learn to Cope group that meets from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursdays at the Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital, 309 Belmont St.

Although the group doesn't deal exclusively with opiate addiction, Ms. Nabulsi said the epidemic of prescription painkiller and heroin use is broadly affecting families in the region.

Besides offering support, Learn to Cope, through a state pilot program, distributes Narcan nasal spray and trains parents, free of charge, how to use it to block a fatal opiate overdose.

Sue Krikorian's daughter, Kailin Krikorian, 24, who lives in Spencer and works at a salon in Worcester, is in recovery from Percocet and OxyContin addiction. With Learn to Cope, she speaks to parents and young people about her experience.

"When I do speak, people usually say to me, 'But you don't look like a drug addict. You don't look like you could do anything like that,' " Kailin said.

"You don't have to look a certain way to be a drug addict. It's more common than most people think. Doctors, priests, lawyers, school teachers. It's not just the homeless man you see on the side of the road."

Kailin said she was 18 when she first used Percocet, a pill she got from a friend in Leicester. She tried it once and soon started using it every night.

"I've never been comfortable in my skin before that. So when I did pills I was, like, finally OK to talk, OK to hang out with my friends and not have anxiety all the time. It finally made me feel I was like everyone else. Like what it was like to be normal.

"I had seen therapists and that kind of stuff. They always would say, 'Here, try this. It will make you feel better.' It never made me feel better," she continued. "But when I did Percs, that made me feel better instantly. I could take it and I knew what I would feel like, and that's what I wanted."

She used painkillers for five years.

Kailin said she would occasionally try to quit and delete all her dealers' numbers from her cellphone.

But she would soon be back, finding other suppliers in the Spencer and Leicester area. She said she never ventured into Worcester to buy until the last six months she was using.

Affording her habit, as a student in beauty school, eventually became a problem.

Kailin said: "I would steal, I would tell my parents I spent my money on stupid things so I needed their money… I had 100,000 reasons and I would stick to them. It's a job to be a drug addict."

"At first you don't notice the money because they're very coy," her mother said. "It's, 'Could I borrow $10? I don't really have enough to go to the movies'; or 'Can you give me some money for gas? I'll pay you back,' and you never get paid back."

Mrs. Krikorian, an information technology professional, said that Kailin's money-siphoning was just part of the chaos. She and her husband didn't identify the addiction until Kailin had been taking drugs for a year.

She said: "At first we were concerned: We thought it was mental health issues — a nervous breakdown or depression. We didn't realize she was on pills.

"It was frightening because we had no idea why, or why all of a sudden we would see our daughter having anxiety attacks or she would be depressed.

"She was never really one to go out and get drunk as a kid, as kids do. We were just basically baffled. We were very, very concerned because all of a sudden it started happening."

Terri Nabulsi of Worcester said signs of opiate addiction usually are not apparent until the addict goes into withdrawal and "moods start swinging."

"And a lot of time with the young age, you think that it's just adolescent behavior," Ms. Nabulsi said. "It's not until they start going through withdrawal or get into trouble with legal or money issues that you're finally able to kind of put the pieces together."

Ms. Nabulsi has a 19-year-old son who suffers from addiction. Her family discovered it when he was 15, she said, after he wasn't showing up at school and school officials filed a Child In Need of Services report on him.

"It started out with marijuana and it moved over to harder drugs. He's never really come out to tell me exactly what he's used, but it did result in a lot of same symptoms as opiate users," Ms. Nabulsi said.

Like many with addiction, her son also ran into trouble with the law.

"He's currently working on his recovery and trying to finish his high school diploma. It's been very hard the last four years. … His future's on hold until we get his legal issues resolved."

Ms. Nabulsi, who works in insurance, said she and her husband were also bewildered about what was was going on with their son, the youngest of three boys.

"It was really hard for our family because I had two older sons who both graduated from UMass and never had any addiction issues. My husband and I, we don't even drink alcohol," she said.

Having a child battling an addiction can be isolating for parents. Mrs. Krikorian said that there's a stigma still and she was afraid people would judge her daughter or her family.

"And then when we found Learn to Cope; it was probably the best thing that ever happened through this long ordeal. You walk in and you're not alone," Sue said.

"I remember the first night I walked in, I was scared to death. There was probably 30 people. I didn't know anybody, I had no idea what to expect. And everybody was just like us. We're all there for the same reason."

At Learn to Cope meetings and on the organization's website (www.learn2cope.org), parents whose children have reached recovery share the steps they undertook to get to that turning point, including what prompted their children to change.

Kailin was finally motivated to stick with recovery when she had run out of options.

"I was just sick of living the way I was living. I had run out of all of my money, all of my resources," she said.

And as part of the recovery, her parents had not allowed Kailin to come back home, forcing her to make her own way.

Mrs. Krikorian said: "Kailin reached recovery by going through detox in Worcester. Then she went to a 28-day, 30-day intense 12-step program in New Hampshire. And from there she went to sober living (home) in Dorchester. Her biggest part of recovery is the 12 steps, I feel. It's a way of life now."

Insurance paid for detox, but the treatment and sober living had to be paid out of pocket, Mrs. Krikorian said. The family spent around $15,000 but some end up paying much more.

Learn to Cope doesn't charge a fee for meetings, and Mrs. Krikorian and Ms. Nabulsi said hearing how others navigated the treatment system can help save money that desperate parents might spend unnecessarily.

"I think every parent should be aware that if it's in their medicine cabinet, their child may try it," Mrs. Krikorian said of opioid addiction.

She added: "You can tell them (parents) to just have hope. Don't give up on your kids. But also don't let your kids manipulate you. Don't enable them. Support them if they're going to go into recovery but then you have to draw a line. It's tough for a parent, but in the end that's the way it needs to be done."

"I think if it wasn't for all of the parents coming together, we wouldn't have the success rate that we do of getting our kids into treatment and recovery," Ms. Nabulsi said. "We want to give parents hope. We want them to feel that they're going to get through this."